ABOUT, FACE—The Federal
Communications
Commission has
been allowing joint
and shared service
agreements for years. Now it’s suddenly
affecting an about-face. On March 6,
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wrote in a
blog post that joint service agreements
would be attributable under ownership
rules if one station accounted for at
least 15 percent of the ad sales of
another.

Four days later, the item appeared on
the agenda for the commission’s March
31 general meeting. Two days after that,
the head of the FCC’s Media Bureau
sent out a notice that it was going to
“apply careful scrutiny” to pending and
future JSAs going forward because of “a
concern that has arisen in our review of
proposed transactions in recent months
and years.”

Does that mean that the commission
has handled JSAs improperly for years?
If so, why is it suddenly qualified to
do so now? Beyond that, what is the
justification for ramming through JSA
re-attribution in less than a month? And
why now?

According to a February article in
“The Wall Street Journal,” there are
128 JSAs in place across the country.
The FCC hasn’t tracked them, so
we can’t be sure where they are, but
it’s safe to assume they’re in smaller
markets. The presumed justification for
unwinding these JSAs is that doing so
is in the public interest, which also is the
foundation of the commission’s media
ownership rules.

The theory behind limiting TV media
outlet ownership in a given market is
that it promotes a diversity of opinions
and news topic coverage. Whether or
not this is a demonstrable reality, no one
knows, and the commission apparently
has no interest in finding out. It’s
simply using the appearance of being a
consolidation watchdog to drive more
TV stations into the incentive auction.

The auction statute says broadcaster
participation is “voluntary,” and not to
be coerced. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

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